How to Build a Strong Co-Parenting Alliance, with Co-Parenting Coach Al Huntoon

Note: Our Podcast, “How to Build a Strong Co-Parenting Alliance, with Co-Parenting Coach Al Huntoon”, was created to be heard, but we provide text transcripts to make this information accessible to everyone. All transcripts on our website are created using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers and could contain errors.

Jaime: Welcome to A Year and a Day. I’m Jamie Davis, board-certified family law attorney at Gailor Hunt. On this show, I talk with lawyers, psychologists, and other experts with the goal of helping you navigate divorce without destruction. In this episode, we’ll be talking with Al Huntoon about co-parenting coaching. Al is not just a social worker and co-parenting coach. He’s a seasoned professional with over 25 years of experience in social work and nearly nine years as a custody mediator. Al is dedicated to fostering harmonious co-parenting relationships and creating a stable, loving environment for children. As the founder of Co-Parenting Connection, he empowers parents with a skills-building approach tailored to each unique situation, delivering real, tangible results. Thanks for joining me, Al.

Al: Well, thank you so much for having me, and thank you for that very kind introduction.

Jaime: Well, will you share with us some more about your background in social work and custody mediation?

Al: Sure. Yeah, I have an MSW from UNC School of Social Work. I’ve worked in a lot of different areas. Most recently, I was a custody mediator, as you mentioned, in District Court mediator. And as a mediator, I mediated over 2,000 cases, which means I met with over 4,000 people. Most of those mediations resulted in an agreement. It didn’t always lead to a parenting agreement, a court order for custody. But, you know, people would leave my office with an agreement about a custody order. I met with all kinds of people. Up until that point in my career, I thought I had worked with just about anybody who needed service, and I was wrong. When I was a custody mediator, we met with everybody, rich and poor, all kinds of ethnicities, all different situations. All of those people had one thing in common. They were extremely anxious. They were afraid. They, you know, we’re talking about, something that is the most precious thing in their lives. And it was, The experience was brand new to most people. Most people hadn’t even heard of mediation before they came to our program.

Jaime: Well, I just want to say that you provided a wonderful service for the folks of Wake County in your capacity as a custody mediator. I think it’s wonderful that people have the opportunity to try to resolve their cases through mediation, especially when they’re you know, dealing with the custody of their children, like you said, you know, the most important thing to them, that they get that chance to resolve it or try to resolve it at least before they end up in a courtroom. So thank you for serving the folks of Wake County in that capacity.

Al: Well, I really appreciate that. And as you know, you know, there was really a distance between the custody mediators and the family law attorneys like yourself. We really didn’t communicate much. You probably saw my name scribbled on the bottom of the letter attached to a draft parenting agreement. And that was about all the communication. Once in a while, we would talk. We would have, you know, attorneys come through our office, might see them in the courtroom and here and there, but mostly there was a lot of distance. And so it’s really great to hear from someone like yourself your appreciation for that program, because I think it really is a wonderful program.

Jaime: Absolutely. Well, so tell us about co-parenting coaching. What is co-parenting coaching, and is it the same thing as counseling?

Al: Well, it’s not the same thing as counseling. It’s more of a direct approach. You’ve probably heard the analogy about, you know, teaching a man to fish, you know, give him a fish, eat for a day, teach him to fish, going to eat forever. The coaching approach is teaching people how to fish. The counseling approach is to ask people, what do you think about, how do you feel about fishing? What are the fishing-related experiences you had in your family of origin, your childhood, you know, how does that motivate you to fish? What kind of fish do you like? So, that kind of thing, I think, is important for a lot of people. I don’t mean to diminish the effectiveness of counseling. I’m a big believer in it, but it’s a very different approach. I have, you know, a strength-based, skills-building, solution-oriented approach. And really, it’s limited. It’s not ongoing. Counseling often can take years for people who have experienced difficulties or trauma in their childhood. I want to work with people in a limited way to help them build skills and have a positive co-parenting mindset, really in four areas, four discrete areas. Communication, conflict management, those are the skill-building areas. And then a child-centered focus and to focus on self-care. And those are mindset areas. You know, there’s some skills associated with that, but that’s really a focus on having the right mindset. And as you know, in the courtroom, the child-centered focus is the focus of the judge. That’s the priority for judges when they’re hearing custody cases. And so that’s so important for parents to have that child-centered focus. I think the other thing, and I know you’re a believer in this, is self-care. I think that gets ignored a lot because the focus is on the conflict and the relationship, but people really need to focus on their self-care. And I think there’s some straightforward things that people can do when they’re thinking about self-care.

Jaime: Yeah, you brought up a really great point. I think sometimes folks get caught up in custody litigation and they forget, you know, when the judge is making a decision about a custody schedule for their child, he or she is thinking about, you know, what is in the best interest of this child. And I think it’s easy for parents to get caught up in winning and losing that focus. So you’re right. Absolutely. Bringing it back around to a child-centered focus is what needs to happen.

Al: So often in mediation, and I’m sure you heard this too, if I want what’s fair. I want my rights, things of that nature. And that’s understandable. That’s natural when people are thinking about it. And that’s going to be an element in the decision-making process, of course. But having the child’s best interest in mind is what’s forefront and the judge’s priority in the courtroom.

Jaime: So what would you say sets your approach apart in fostering harmonious co-parenting relationships? And how do you incorporate empathy and understanding into your coaching?

Al: Well, that’s a great question. I think a couple of things set me apart. One thing is that really that wealth of experience meeting with so many people, having seen people coming from all different kinds of situations. I think the other thing is I often see people approach this as a kind of divorce coaching. And probably well over half the parties that we saw in mediation weren’t married. I have this, there’s one case that really stuck with me. And, um, it was a little three month old girl, uh, who was the child at the center. Of the custody case, but the child was conceived at a one night stand. So, you know, the parents were young adults. They were strangers to each other. And when they came into my office, far apart as they could possibly be. Mom thought of the child as her child, and that dad was not only a stranger to her, but a stranger to their child. And dad really wanted to be a parent to the child, to spend time with her, to care for her, to love her, and to actively parent her. And we were able to talk through that. And at the end of two hours, they really had an opportunity to understand each other and to kind of work toward an agreement. They didn’t come up with a full parenting agreement, you know, but they had the outlines of a custody order. And mom took that back to her attorney. And I didn’t see him again, but I assume the attorney took that, the basis of the agreement, and put it into the form of a consent order. And they were able to come up with something. So I think, you know, all those kinds of experiences really set me apart. The wealth of experience, but also the experience with people who were never married or even engaged, sometimes not even having much of a relationship.

Jaime: I mean, that’s got to be really tough if, you know, folks have not even had much of a relationship at all. And they’re being asked to share custody of a child with someone that they don’t really know, much less trust. I think it does take a special skill set to talk to both of those individuals and, you know, get them to a place where they can agree on what is best for their child.

Al: Yeah, people like that are really starting from scratch. There’s the trust that they need to build with each other. But the other part of that is they need to trust us. You know, when they have attorneys, they need to trust the attorney is going to do the best job for them and their children. And when they come to mediation, they need to trust the mediator. And when they come to me as a coach, we need to build trust really quickly. And I think one thing that builds trust is a sense of confidence that you get from the wealth of experience that you have, that I have with these kinds of cases.

Jaime: So when folks come to you for coaching, do you typically work with both parents or one parent or the other?

Al: Well, it’s a pretty new coaching practice, so I don’t have a lot of experience with coaches. But my preference is to work with both parents because what the goal is, is to build a parenting alliance, right? All of the strategies, the techniques that I work with people on is to build a better co-parenting alliance between the two parents. That’s the goal. So you can do that with two people. And Always mediated with both parents. So that’s my experience. But, you know, that is not going to happen. Yeah. And a lot of times, you know, in a lot of cases one of the parents is much more interested, much more motivated. And I can still work with that really motivated parent. I think parents can lead each other. They can be role models. They can show the other parent the way. And when they create a kind of a climate, a little culture of co-parenting, I think they can lead the other parent in that direction. So that’s my perspective on that.

Jaime: So with your wealth of experience, I am sure you have seen almost everything. What specific challenges have you observed in co-parenting? After separation and divorce.

Al: Well, I think there’s four common challenges, and some of these apply to people who are not separated and are divorcing and attacked family. And the biggest one is miscommunication. People are not good communicators. They’re just not, especially when intensity is so high. The stakes feel so high to people that miscommunication is a real issue. The other thing that is very common is different parenting styles. And I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but I noticed that often people with very young children, you know, between two and three, and I think the research supports this, that they separate. And the reason why is because up until the point where they had children, they didn’t know what their parenting styles were. And what happens is that people come together and they have common interests and they have an emotional bond. What they don’t discuss and they don’t have an opportunity to demonstrate is their parenting style. Each of us gets that from our families of origin, from our own parents, from our experience from other caregivers. We come at parenting in a certain way with a certain mindset. There’s lots of things about different parenting styles, you know, categories of parenting styles. But when the children are toddlers, basically, and they start forming and growing, and relating to people. They start forming their personality, become very clear, and they start relating to people. And people talk about the terrible twos when they get in that stage of development between two and four, that’s when parenting styles emerge. And so, people’s parenting styles don’t align a lot of times. And so, that’s a real issue. And they may not even really be aware that that’s the issue. So, I think that’s true of people who are separating and divorcing, and it can be true in tech families as well.

Jaime: That’s a really great point. I don’t know that I have ever thought about that, but you’re right. I mean, two individuals may get along great and have very common interests and have a wonderful relationship, and then they decide to have a child together. But Neither one of them has any experience parenting a child, and they have no idea what their co-parenting style or parenting style is going to be. And I could see where if those two things conflict, you know, that’s gonna be really tough on the relationship.

Al: Yeah, if they’re misaligned, if the parenting styles are really misaligned, and That can be kind of a fundamental value that you have is how you’re going to parent your child. And the other thing that can present in that situation is cultural differences. There’s, you know, different cultures that have different kinds of predominant parenting styles. And if people are from different cultures, they may have been able to integrate those cultures in their relationship. But they can really come into conflict in parenting styles. Another common problem is emotional reactivity. You know how emotional people get during this terribly difficult time. It might be the worst time that they’ve experienced in their life up until this point when they’re separating and divorcing. I’m sure you’ve seen that. And so the emotions they’re lucky if they’re just below the surface. They’re right there. They’re feeling a lot of fear. They’re afraid that they’re going to lose the most precious thing in their life or lose some important part of it. And so that is often below the surface and often erupts in discussions. It’s right there. And that relates to the fourth thing, which is the unresolved relationship conflict. People don’t have opportunities when they’re going through separation, divorce, or separating when they’ve just been living together or engaged or whatever it is. When they’re separating like that, they don’t have opportunities to resolve their relationship conflict. And so then when they’re moving forward and trying to parent their children from separate households, that unresolved relationship conflict will create a drag on their ability to parent because it’ll keep coming up.

Jamie: Yeah, that seems like a win for everyone involved. If they can work out whatever co-parenting issues they’re having so that those don’t spill over into the legal process, then hopefully, the lawyers can help them get their case resolved. Can you provide some examples of cases where your coaching has made a significant impact on families who are navigating a shared custody arrangement?

Al: I can’t because it’s a pretty new practice and I really haven’t gotten to that point yet. So I’ll just be honest about that. I can provide some examples where I was able to do that through mediation. And you know those mediation appointments are only two hours. So there were many times where I was able to work with people who came through my door in a fight. And left with an agreement after two hours. And one of the ways that I did that was by surfacing the emotional issues. And one of the things that happens in terms of the unresolved relationship conflict is someone has been hurt, they’ve been wronged through the process, right, of the breakup. The dissolution of the marriage. They’ve been wronged and they feel like they’re owed something. And it happens so often, I came up with a term for it, call it psychological justice. They want psychological justice. The scales of justice to be balanced. In some way that affects the relationship, because there was a disparity of power. Someone wanted the relationship more than someone else. And the person who was disempowered by that wants to get even in some way. And what happens is people confuse the goal of the court system. They think that they’re going to get some psychological justice out of the court system. But are they, Jaime?

Jaime: Not in my experience, no.

Al: No, they’re not. There’s really kind of two issues at stake. There’s the children and there’s finances. It could be child support, but also all the marital property, all the money that comes with disentangling the finances. The court, the system, the judge, and the attorneys are going to approach that as a rational process, not an emotional, psychological one. So What I have been able to do, and keep in mind, again, it’s only two hours, is to surface those issues. And to find out what it is, and to get the other parent to understand that there’s a very simple thing that they can do right at this point to move the negotiation forward. And do you know what that is?

Jaime: What’s that?

Al: Say you’re sorry. It doesn’t always work, of course, right? It’s a deep cut. And just a little thing like saying you’re sorry isn’t often enough. But if people can say it and they can say it in a meaningful way, and this gets back to trust. If you ask, do you trust that person when they say that? Then often people can move forward. And that’s something that I would do in the context of coaching as well. It’s something that’s come up in the short time that I’ve been a coach is to really talk about, you know, is that an issue? And then what can be done to address that issue in kind of a straightforward way doesn’t heal it, but just starts the healing process. And it really works. Not all the time.

Jaime: It seems to me it’s almost like figuring out, like, really, is there a difference in what each parent thinks is appropriate in terms of, you know, schedules for the child or decisions for the child? Or like you just mentioned, is there some underlying unresolved issue where somebody’s feelings got hurt about something? I mean, that’s, you know, pretty important to get to the bottom of that so that these folks can get on the same page and move forward.

Al: If it’s Mutual. If the breakup, if the separation is mutual, and a lot of times it is, then usually there’s not too much of a difference in how you think about these other areas. And of course, the financial part, I don’t have much experience, so you have a ton of experience with that. I don’t. But sometimes people have very complicated financial situations, but a lot of times they don’t. I don’t. I have a house and I still have the money in the bank, that’s it. But, you know, those complications become even more complicated when there’s a hidden agenda. When people are just kind of, it’s more mutual, then there’s no hidden agenda. But if it’s not, and if people are harboring resentment and anger and frustration with the other person. They need to talk about that. That’s, again, coming back to unresolved relationship conflict. And one of the things that I would do, especially in mediation, that my colleagues, I think, were shocked by, is I would label people’s emotions. And I would say, you know, you seem like you’re really frustrated and angry. And a real common reaction would be, I’m not angry. Well, you’re obviously angry. And the reason I’m saying that is it’s okay in this situation to be angry. It’s okay. What’s not okay is to let your anger interfere with your children’s best interests and your best interest. It’s okay to feel angry or fearful, frustrated. Sad. To the point of depression, all those things are okay. But what’s not okay is to let those emotions represent an obstacle to having a good parenting relationship with your other parenting partner, a close parenting Alliance.

Jaime: Absolutely. In your experience, how important is effective communication and co-parenting? And what tips can you offer to improve communication between parents?

Al: I think, you know, I’m, this is how, I’ll make a confession. This is how I got through graduate school, is by being good enough. I’m a believer in being good enough, and especially when it’s in parenting. You don’t have to be a perfect parent. You can’t be. What you need to try is to be good enough. And so for any of it, communication especially, the communication needs to be good enough. And I think having that standard lowers the pressure on people. Um, I don’t intend to reinvent the wheel. There’s lots of things about communication and how people can communicate more effectively. And they really apply to parenting situations. Here’s some things that I know you’ve heard. Use I statements. I feel this way when this happens. I think that this is the best approach. Take responsibility for your communication. Try to keep the emotional reactivity out of the communication. Understand that that’s a part of it, but really focus on the issue. Communicate about the issue. Keep that child-centered focus at the forefront of your communication. Go slow. Is what I’d recommend. A lot of times when people communicate, they bring a certain urgency to it. And especially the people with their cell phones and texting. Texting can really create a lot of problems for people because people expect an immediate response. They give a little short, little text, and they expect an immediate response. If they don’t get it, they get impatient. And then all of a sudden, they’re blowing each other’s phones up with these texts. You know what I’m talking about, right?

Jaime: What’s that?

Al: Say you’re sorry. It doesn’t always work, of course, right? It’s a deep cut. And just a little thing like saying you’re sorry isn’t often enough. But if people can say it and they can say it in a meaningful way, and this gets back to trust. If you ask, do you trust that person when they say that? Then often people can move forward. And that’s something that I would do in the context of coaching as well. It’s something that’s come up in the short time that I’ve been a coach is to really talk about, you know, is that an issue? And then what can be done to address that issue in kind of a straightforward way doesn’t heal it, but just starts the healing process. And it really works. Not all the time.

Jaime: It seems to me it’s almost like figuring out, like, really, is there a difference in what each parent thinks is appropriate in terms of, you know, schedules for the child or decisions for the child? Or like you just mentioned, is there some underlying unresolved issue where somebody’s feelings got hurt about something? I mean, that’s, you know, pretty important to get to the bottom of that so that these folks can get on the same page and move forward.

Al: If it’s Mutual. If the breakup, if the separation is mutual, and a lot of times it is, then usually there’s not too much of a difference in how you think about these other areas. And of course, the financial part, I don’t have much experience, so you have a ton of experience with that. I don’t. But sometimes people have very complicated financial situations, but a lot of times they don’t. I don’t. I have a house and I still have the money in the bank, that’s it. But, you know, those complications become even more complicated when there’s a hidden agenda. When people are just kind of, it’s more mutual, then there’s no hidden agenda. But if it’s not, and if people are harboring resentment and anger and frustration with the other person. They need to talk about that. That’s, again, coming back to unresolved relationship conflict. And one of the things that I would do, especially in mediation, that my colleagues, I think, were shocked by, is I would label people’s emotions. And I would say, you know, you seem like you’re really frustrated and angry. And a real common reaction would be, I’m not angry. Well, you’re obviously angry. And the reason I’m saying that is it’s okay in this situation to be angry. It’s okay. What’s not okay is to let your anger interfere with your children’s best interests and your best interest. It’s okay to feel angry or fearful, frustrated. Sad. To the point of depression, all those things are okay. But what’s not okay is to let those emotions represent an obstacle to having a good parenting relationship with your other parenting partner, a close parenting Alliance.

Jaime: Absolutely. In your experience, how important is effective communication and co-parenting? And what tips can you offer to improve communication between parents?

Al: I think, you know, I’m, this is how, I’ll make a confession. This is how I got through graduate school, is by being good enough. I’m a believer in being good enough, and especially when it’s in parenting. You don’t have to be a perfect parent. You can’t be. What you need to try is to be good enough. And so for any of it, communication especially, the communication needs to be good enough. And I think having that standard lowers the pressure on people. Um, I don’t intend to reinvent the wheel. There’s lots of things about communication and how people can communicate more effectively. And they really apply to parenting situations. Here’s some things that I know you’ve heard. Use I statements. I feel this way when this happens. I think that this is the best approach. Take responsibility for your communication. Try to keep the emotional reactivity out of the communication. Understand that that’s a part of it, but really focus on the issue. Communicate about the issue. Keep that child-centered focus at the forefront of your communication. Go slow. Is what I’d recommend. A lot of times when people communicate, they bring a certain urgency to it. And especially the people with their cell phones and texting. Texting can really create a lot of problems for people because people expect an immediate response. They give a little short, little text, and they expect an immediate response. If they don’t get it, they get impatient. And then all of a sudden, they’re blowing each other’s phones up with these texts. You know what I’m talking about, right?

Jaime: Yes, texting can be a nightmare for sure.

Al: It’s a nightmare, right? Don’t do that. Don’t communicate that way. It’s not an effective way to communicate about a real issue. Probably, it depends on the level of conflict. Have a conversation with the other parent if you can. But if it’s a real high-conflict situation, you need to be emailing, and you need to use, you know, there’s applications that help people in high-conflict situations. Think of your relationship with the other parent in a business-like manner. You would never say stuff and do stuff at your place of work that you try to get away with the other parent you’re in the business of raising these children now. And see the other person in a business-like way. And usually, when people can adopt that mindset, they’ll come at it with a little more respect.

Jaime: Right. Like if you would be ashamed to read whatever you wrote out loud in court in front of a judge, don’t say it to your co-parent.

Al: Right, right. Or even, I think, take it down a notch. Would you write that text to your boss?

Jaime: Right.

Al: Right. There’s not the differential of power like there is between, you know, a litigant and a judge or an employee and a boss. But it demonstrates the level of respect that you should take regarding the other parent.

Jaime: If you could only offer one piece of advice to someone who is going through a custody dispute with their child’s co-parent, what would it be?

Al: Man, that’s a great question. Get a co-parenting coach. That’s right. The one piece of advice that I start off with when talking to people is to explore your legal options. That’s the most important thing. Consult with an attorney is the most important thing you can do. You don’t have to engage an attorney, but you should consult with an attorney. And if you don’t have the means to do that, there’s ways to do that. You know, in Wake County, there’s legal aid. And I think the other thing is that, you know, the self-filing, the state of North Carolina has made it very easy to self-file for custody and to, you know, kind of, um, explore child support through the Department of Social Services. So the state of North Carolina made it very easy to do those things. That is the best way in the long term to resolve your custody dispute or your child support dispute is to explore your legal options. People can come up with agreements informally. They can do it between each other. I’ve seen people do that, and then they get it notarized. Or separation agreement is a more formal way to do that. But if you really want to resolve those issues, you’re going to go through the court system. So that may sound like an odd piece of advice coming from a co-parenting coach, but the most important thing is to resolve it and to resolve it permanently.

Jaime: I think that’s great advice. I mean, like you said, even if a person doesn’t hire a lawyer, they should at least have some information about what their rights are, what they can expect, especially before they do something potentially they shouldn’t, right? And if the goal is to bring peace and stability to the child, which I think should always be the goal, you want to make sure you do it right. And something informal might be okay for now, but five years from now, maybe that’s not good enough and maybe you do need something that’s more set in stone, perhaps a signed notarized agreement or a court order. But yeah, I think that’s great advice.

Al: Yeah, I would advise in every case that people get court orders. And you can do that yourself and fairly inexpensively and end up with a really great court or a custody order or, you know, a child support order. Yeah. Or, you know, if you have a more complicated situation, you should definitely work with an attorney. And I saw plenty of those cases where people thought that, you know, they wrote something up themselves and they had it notarized and they thought that it was a permanent resolution, but it wasn’t. And then they did consult with the attorney and they found that it’s really not very enforceable. Right? And the same is true, I don’t get a lot of legal stuff, but the same is true of the separation agreement, right? It’s not as enforceable as a court order. And so I think that’s the best way to resolve it. And when that’s resolved, that is a fundamental part of a lot of people’s conflict. And when that’s resolved, it can move forward.

Jaime: Right. That’s a great point. I mean, once there is something written out, there’s a schedule, there’s rules for communication, there’s rules for decision making, who gets to decide what extracurricular activities the child participates in and those sorts of things. You know, it’s almost like once the conflict is over, then the parents can get back to co-parenting the child and moving forward in that manner.

Al: Right. They don’t need to have a conflict over how the holidays are going to work.

Jaime: Right, because they have the rules.

Al: Yep, they have the rules about how that works. And sometimes they might need some help interpreting those rules. You know, usually they’re very clear. And one thing I’ll say, you know, I think attorneys get a bad rap a lot of times, right? There’s all kinds of lawyer jokes and stuff like that. I’m like, don’t worry, I’m not going to do any lawyer jokes. But it is a bad rap because people like you care about people. That’s why you do family law, right? Because it can be hard, a lot of stress, a lot of headaches, a lot of burnout in family law attorneys. And one of the ways that I think you all demonstrate that, and this is true for you and for a lot of your colleagues around, is you put information out there for people on your website. There’s a lot of, there has been and still is a lot of movement towards transparency so people can look on your website and understand how these issues work. You could try to make it approachable for people and explanation about issues. Divorce, custody, child support, things like that. One thing that I was hoping to talk about is high conflict situations. You mentioned you’re a parenting coordinator, and I think that there has been a trend in family court of having emotions for parenting coordination and assigning parenting coordinators more often for high conflict situations. Right. You know, one thing I want to do is make a distinction. Of course, the coaching is not appropriate for a real high-conflict situation. Sometimes it is. Sometimes I’ve seen that people can understand that they need to be a parallel parent, right? That they each need to do their own thing and respect the other parent and just leave them alone. And they can do that. And they can do it well enough. But some people just can’t and they do need a parenting coordinator the parenting coordinator acts like a judicial surrogate right and decides things help people move through these issues But the direction of the parenting coordinate is really to solve those issues that come up with in high conflict situations where as a coach what i would be doing is giving people the basis for problem solving, a foundation for problem solving on their own. And like I said, there’s some situations where parenting coordination is appropriate. It’s the only way that you’re going to keep people out of constant fights. But I think there’s other situations where they can really benefit from coaching and learn how to solve those problems for themselves.

Jaime: Well, so I even think that I call them my PC clients. I think they could even benefit from coaching services. You know, I tell folks. If I’m doing a good job as a parent coordinator, I am working myself out of a job because my goal is to get them to a place where They don’t need me anymore. Maybe they get tired of me acting as the third parent in their relationship and they learn to work together because whatever they agree on They’re probably going to like more than whatever decision I make for them. And so I do think parenting coaching could be beneficial for those folks so that they begin to learn how to work together.

Al: I think you’re right. And I think if they’re looking toward someone else to solve their problem, get them out of these issues, they’re not as likely to be able to build their problem-solving skills. I have an analogy that I used with high conflict situations that it’s like you’re taking a road trip. And the parents are the drivers, the children are the passengers, the precious cargo. And there are going to be obstacles on the way, potholes, detours, things like that. There’s going to be, Weather, that will slow things down, interfere, cause delays. The weather is the emotional aspect of it. And so there’s advice that goes along with a long road trip, which is to stay in your lane. You focus on what you need to do to keep your children safe and healthy and let the other parent focus on what they need. Respect the guardrails. There should be clear boundaries for people, clear rules that they operate under, clear boundaries. They should watch out for the signals, be attuned to their children and their children’s needs and their moods, and also be attuned to the other parent and what they’re willing to do and what they’re not willing to do. Go slow. This comes back to the advice about communication. There’s a lot of issues that are just not that urgent and you need to go into them understanding that, you know, you don’t need to bring the sense of urgency, that That really increases the stakes when you make it feel like it’s more urgent. Slow down. Start early. And the other thing is you’re going to need to merge sometimes. Sometimes you’re going to need to come together on things. And that means that you’re going to have to think about compromising. Respecting the other person’s space and their perspective. And there are going to be detours. Try to make those detours as short as possible. Everyone’s going to get off track. Make sure you’re not going down a dirt road or dead end. Get back on your trip as quickly as possible when you find yourself in that situation that you’re detoured and you’re headed down a dirt road. And then finally, you know, enjoy the journey when you can. You’re in it with your children. And the best way to have a long car trip with children is to make it enjoyable for them, play some games, have some fun, even on that journey. You know, I think there’s ways to approach those high conflict situations that isn’t, you know, necessarily result in a parent and coordinator or long-term relationship with a parenting coordinator. That they can, like you said, you acknowledge that people under the right circumstances can benefit from some coaching.

Jamie: So if any of our listeners out there are interested in reaching out to you for coaching services, what is the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Al: Well, the best way is just to go to my website and they can contact me through my website, which is coparentingconnection, all one word, dot com. And then there’s a way to contact me on the website. And I think that’s the best way. They can see everything I have to offer them. My services are on there with the costs. I’m very transparent about what I offer. And I’m happy to offer a free session or free consultation to people just so that they can talk with me. I can see if it’s appropriate situation for coaching and see if they’d like to work with me as a coach.

Jaime: Well, thank you so much for joining us. This has been very informative. I know I’ve learned a lot about co-parenting coaching, so thank you.

Al: Well, you’re welcome. Thank you.

Jaime: Thank you for listening. If you liked this episode, be sure to follow the show wherever you get your podcasts so you don’t miss the next one. While the information presented is intended to provide you with general information to navigate divorce without destruction, this podcast is not legal advice. This information is specific to the law in North Carolina. If you have any questions before taking action, consult an attorney who is licensed in your state. If you are in need of assistance in North Carolina, you can contact us at Gailor Hunt by visiting divorcestuff.com. I’m Jamie Davis, and I’ll talk with you next time on A Year and a Day.